Taking on the Billionaire
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Robin Covington
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One
Tess Lynch was a distraction.
A sexy, smart, competent, mouth-wateringly tempting distraction.
For the millionth time since he’d first met her, Adam Redhawk regretted his decision to take the office that was glass on three sides. Everyone had told him that this office, with its commanding prize of place in the corporate headquarters of Redhawk/Ling, was the best way to announce to the world that he was the CEO of a billion-dollar tech company.
Now he’d give at least a million to get one damn solid wall.
His luxury corporate fishbowl gave him zero opportunity to get his act together before his favorite redheaded private investigator sauntered into his space and plopped a thick file on the center of his desk. And God knew that Adam needed every second to get his act together when it came to Tess Lynch. He spared a glance at the pile of papers she’d tossed down, the sprawl of folders out of place on the immaculate desktop, but he couldn’t resist the compulsion to return his gaze back to her face and the sparkling flash of her golden-jade eyes.
She was laughing at him, dammit.
Of course she was.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Lynch.” He glanced at his watch, knowing full well what time it was but taking the extra few seconds to school his expression before looking at her again. Her auburn curls were loose today and she wore a body-skimming dark pink dress that ended just above the knee. The entire outfit looked like it was specifically made to showcase her full, voluptuous figure. Tess reminded him of the classic film star Rita Hayworth, a favorite of his adoptive mother. Bold and self-assured, Tess was...breathtaking. “You’re late.”
She laughed, tossing off her jacket and his censure at the same time. “Only fifteen minutes.”
“That is still late.”
He wanted to keep the steel in his voice, wanted to keep the necessary distance between them, needed to keep believing that he didn’t want her. But it was impossible when she slinked around the edge of his desk until there was barely an arm’s length between them. This close he could see the splash of freckles across her nose and smell the scent of her, soft and citrus sharp. Everything in his body went on high alert and he marveled that she didn’t feel the heat wafting off him in pulse-pounding waves.
Temptation. If he looked the word up in the dictionary, she’d be there, complete with red-gold hair, freckles and a sly, kissable grin.
“You’re right,” she agreed, surprising him with her quick acquiescence. Usually they sparred a bit longer before one of them begrudgingly conceded temporary defeat and they proceeded to take care of business. “But I knew you had a meeting with Justin right before this and he always starts fifteen minutes late and goes over by the same amount.” Tess leaned against his desk, her body language communicating just how much she didn’t care if he was irritated with her being late to the meeting. He watched as she picked up the pair of drumsticks on his desk and lazily twirled them between her slim fingers, the look in her eyes daring him to stop her. “So, Mr. Redhawk, I’m not late. I’m right on time.”
Adam couldn’t argue with her. Her position was logical and fact based, two things that always made sense to him. And her lips twisting in a sexy “you know I’m right” smile crumbled any argument he was going to make.
He grinned and nodded in concession while he reached out and took his sticks out of her hands and placed them back on the desk. “One day I’m going to take Justin’s watch and reset it so that he’ll be on time for once.”
“That won’t work. You’d have better luck trying to change the tide.”
That was true. His best friend and business partner marched to his own internal clock. He was never going to change.
“How did the two of you ever become friends?” Tess asked, shifting over toward the grouping of personal photos on the low table behind his desk. She leaned over, focusing on one of Justin and him at Stanford. Two smiling idiots, stupid enough to think they could quit academia and make their dream come true.
The idiots had done all right.
“It was in the campus security lockup. Justin talked them into letting us go with just a warning.” Adam shook his head at the memory. What a pair of dumbass, know-it-all jerks they’d been back then.
“I bet he did.” Tess laughed, shifting to peek up at him between glossy auburn curls. “What did you guys do to get busted by the cops?”
“I’ll never tell.”
“I can find out, you know.” She murmured, “It is my job.”
Tess touched the photo and Adam watched her. The way she moved so confidently in his space was mesmerizing. Tess was gorgeous, her body curvy and sexy, but it was the way she owned her place in the world that kept him awake at night. It was her take-no-prisoners bravado that kept him hard and wanting anytime she was near. When she straightened and looked at him over his shoulder, he almost forgot that they were in an office exposed to all of his employees. The office where he was supposed to be running his billion-dollar company and not yearning to kiss this woman, to taste this woman, to possess this woman.
What was this thing between them? Tess Lynch was not the kind of woman who usually caught his eye. She was secretive and elusive, mouthy and brash, and owned her blatant brand of sexuality. She was also decisively stubborn but also changed her moods and mind as quickly as a hummingbird flew. Tess Lynch was a walking danger sign that he should heed but spent way too much time figuring out ways to ignore. She did not fit in the way he wanted his world to function, but he found himself caring less and less.
A few months ago he’d taken the referral from a friend of his and hired Tess to find his younger brother and sister. They’d all been taken from their parents and separated in an illegal adoption twenty-four years ago, and now he’d finally made good on the promise that six-year-old Adam had made to himself and his ancestors. Tess had been successful and located both Sarina and Roan and now she was here to deliver the final report.
But while the job he initially hired her to do was over, he was glad to have another reason to keep her around a little while longer. Which was insane because if he was right, the problem he needed her to help solve could take down his company and everything he’d fought to achieve.
Adam needed to focus. He’d asked for this meeting because he needed to take quick action if he was going to save the company he created. Adam turned away from her, needing to break the connection and regroup.
He spied the folders on the desk and tapped a finger on the papers. “What’s this?”
“The final report...” she paused, tilting her head to the side, watching him closely “...and copies of everything I found while I was searching for your family. Court records. Newspaper clippings. Educational, job and criminal records. The last twenty years condensed on paper and a USB drive.” He raised an eyebrow in question and Tess shrugged. “I know you didn’t ask for all of that extra stuff but I thought you might like to have it. It might connect some dots.”
Damn. Well, he’d asked. And wasn’t this just like jumping from the corporate frying pan into the fire of messy family relations?
His hand hovered over the top folder while he played chicken with his past. He’d spent a ton of money and a lot of time to find his lost brother and sister and the answers to all of the questions that had tormented him for the last twenty-four years were sitting on his desk reduced to words and pixels.
Finally forcing himself to open it, he was greeted by his own face looking back at him in two pictures. The first was his current headshot and the other was when he was six years old, the photo his adoptive parents had first seen when they were picking out a kid to give a better life to. Hardened brown eyes that knew way too much about the shit life could throw at you stared back at him from the page. Adam shut the folder. He knew the rest of his story.
The other two packets contained similar but completely different histories. His brother and sister, Sarina and Roan, flashed across his line of vision in a stream of photos and facts and data about what had happened to them after they’d been separated and sent to different families. Different states. Different lives. Different trauma but the same hard expression stared back at him in the photographs. He was anxious to read every word and sickened by the sensation that he was prying into things he had no business knowing.
Things he had paid Tess to find out when he’d hired her to find them.
Things he’d know firsthand if their lives had turned out differently.
Adam slammed the folder shut and tossed it with more force than he intended, causing a couple of pens to shoot off the other side of the desk onto the hardwood floor. He cursed under his breath and took a step to pick them up but the firm press of Tess’s hand on his arm stopped him cold. He glanced down at where she touched him, her warmth raising goose bumps on his own skin, and then lifted his eyes to meet her gaze. He’d expected pity so the open, clear expression of understanding on her face surprised him.
“Adam, I gave them both the same information. You’re all starting at the same place, with the same facts about each other.”
He shifted his arm and Tess’s grip slid until their hands fit together. The touch of their palms was electric, sharp but totally right. They stared at each other, his eyes drifting down to her lips as they parted on a stutter as she temporarily lost her train of thought.
“Family is hard,” she whispered, voice catching on the last part with whatever baggage she brought along with her.
Oh hell. Adam squeezed his eyes shut to the gut punch her words delivered. He’d never been good with the family who’d raised him and now he had a long-lost sister and brother to make some kind of future with. What the hell had he been thinking?
“If it helps, the three of you are more alike than you’d think,” she continued, her voice stronger, soothing and laced with humor. “You all ride motorcycles. Fast ones. Loud ones. And no European crotch rockets, either. You people are a Harley family. It’s like it’s imprinted on your DNA or something.”
This surprised a laugh out of him and something tight in his throat broke loose. Tess’s eyes widened as she tilted her head to the side with the unspoken question.
“Our dad had a crappy Harley. I remember riding around with him on the Qualla Boundary.” The memory was one of the few he still had that felt real. Most of that time felt like he made it up or that it had happened to someone else. Twenty-four years was a long time. “I guess it is in our DNA.”
Adam released her hand, breaking their connection, and walked over to the windows looking out over the wooded tech campus. This part of California was beautiful, nothing like what he could remember of the lush, blue-tinged mystery of the mountains of his boyhood home. But it was gorgeous in its own way. He’d built something here with Justin, a company that employed a lot of people and had the potential to help many, many more.
He’d created a really good life for himself. It would only be better with his brother and sister in it.
But while he wanted to sit down and devour every bit of the information about his family, now was not the time. The future of his company was on the line and he needed Tess and her skills to save it.
Redhawk/Ling had a launch in eight weeks, the app that would make or break this company, and they had a problem. A very big problem and he needed her help.
He turned to Tess and finally got to the main reason he’d asked her to meet him today.
“Tess, I didn’t ask you here just to get the final report. I need to hire you for another job. Somebody from inside Redhawk/Ling is trying to take us down and I want to hire you to find out who it is.”
